The Descartes Evolution
Page 19
Luke rose to his feet. He ran his hands through his dark hair then shoved them into his pockets and paced the room. Coming to a halt across from her, he leaned against the counter and continued.
“Once we knew where to search, we found signs of an organization—the Conclave—that had a hand in everything; government, policy making, military. I knew I couldn’t take it on alone, and we were no longer safe. We set it up that I was going to ‘die,’ along with my family, and we’d take on new identities.”
Jenna felt a sense of dread rise up inside her. She knew where this was going. “What happened?” she whispered.
“We didn’t move fast enough. They set a car bomb. It was supposed to kill me. Instead, Leah and Maddy were killed.”
Jenna pushed out her chair and stood up. She crossed the room, wrapped her arms around Luke’s waist, and hugged him close. For a minute, his arms tightened around her, then he held her away gently. “We need to finish this.”
She nodded.
“They were killed outright. Callum was in the car behind. He managed to pull me out, but there was nothing we could do for them.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, and Jenna could see the remembered agony in his eyes. “With the help of a CIA contact, we faked my death. Lucien Hockley died and Luke Grafton was born.”
“I’m sorry. About your wife and baby.”
“It was ten years ago. In the past.”
“There are some things you never get over.” At least that explained his aversion to relationships. It was probably just as well.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Anyway, we’ve spent the last ten years going after them, but the whole setup is based on secrecy. At the lower level, no one knows anyone but their immediate contacts, above and below. People are recruited, and they themselves select a suitable candidate.”
“Do you think that’s what happened to your father?”
“Without a doubt. But if they’d researched him closely, they would have known he would never be involved in such an immoral organization.”
Jenna frowned. “But what do they want? Is it political? Religious?”
“Neither, as far as we can tell. From the intel we’ve gathered, the Conclave crosses all political beliefs and religions. I’ve come to believe their only creed is power.”
“I still don’t understand where I come into this. And how did David get involved?”
“A few weeks ago, we captured a low-level soldier of the Conclave. There was little he could tell us—”
“You tortured him?”
He looked surprised at the question. “We persuaded him that it was in his best interests to talk. Do you think that makes us as bad as them?”
She thought about the question, about what had been done to David. What they had tried to do to her and to Luke, whose whole life had been changed beyond comprehension by their activities. How good it had felt when she killed the man who tried to rape her, and she realized she would do it again in a second. They needed to be stopped, and somebody needed to have the guts to stop them.
“No. You got no pleasure from whatever you did.” A shudder ran through her as she remembered the sadistic pleasure in the doctor’s eyes as he injected her with his chemicals.
Luke studied her, his face serious. “You know that for sure?”
She smiled. “Oh yes.” She sat, and Luke followed her and sank down opposite. “Go on,” she said.
“He told us something big was going down, code-named Descartes. He didn’t know what or when, just that it would be soon, and he also gave us the name of his contact in London, a Lee Carson. When we picked up Carson’s trail, he was following a man. A Dr. Griffith.”
“David,” Jenna murmured. “But that still doesn’t explain why.”
“I presume he must have done an internet search and it was picked up. Carson questioned him about Descartes. Under torture, Griffith revealed it was somehow linked to a patient. You. I assumed the identity of his cousin—”
“You had photographs of the two of you together.” He raised an eyebrow and she scowled. “Okay, I’m being naïve. I guess that sort of thing is easy.”
“Very easy. I went to see you. Unfortunately, you refused to cooperate. I had to find some way to make you trust me. I sent some of my men in to frighten you, with the intention of rescuing you and gaining your trust, but they got there too late. When they arrived, you already had visitors. We came in as fast as we could.”
“Would your men have tortured me?”
“No. You were never supposed to be hurt. I haven’t sunk that low yet.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“No, because you’re an innocent.”
He fell silent. Why was she so shocked? Why should he have thought twice about frightening her when he didn’t even know her? When she was his last lead on a mission that had driven him for ten years?
And really, if he hadn’t sent his men after her, they wouldn’t have found her in time and likely she’d be dead by now. It wouldn’t have been an easy death. All the same, she couldn’t quite shake the sense of betrayal or completely ignore the tears that burned her eyes. She blinked and forced the feeling down.
He reached across the table and took her hand in his, stroking his thumb against her palm. “If it makes you feel any better, for the first time in over ten years I actually felt guilty. I was furious with myself. I should have never let you out of my sight after the first moment I met you. I knew you were involved, and I put you in harm’s way.”
She thought about pulling her hand free, but it felt too good. “Yes, it makes me feel better. Finish the story. Did you find out anything when I was gone? Did you get anything valuable from the place I was held?”
“We got the hard drives from the facility where you were kept; they’re being analyzed now.”
“How did you find me, anyway?”
“After you went to the police, we got some information that something relating to the Conclave had just gone down in Ivory Coast. We followed the lead and found a whole village had been wiped out by some sort of bioweapon. We think it was a test for something bigger.”
“A village? How could they do that?”
“I don’t know. We were able to follow the trail to a company in the UK. The owner fit the Conclave profile perfectly—”
“They have a profile?”
“Yes. It’s not foolproof, but it allows us to pinpoint probable members. We persuaded this man to talk, and he gave us information that led us to you.”
“Thank you. I know you didn’t have to come for me.”
His hand tightened on hers. “Yes, I did.”
He was silent for a moment, but she sensed there was more. “What is it?”
“You remember we were investigating your father?”
She’d hated the idea, but she realized her father must be tied in to Descartes somehow. He’d been there at the start of it all. She rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled. “Did you find anything?”
“Yes. That up until twenty-two years ago Dr. Jonathon Young did not exist.”
“I don’t understand.” Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.
“Oh, it was cleverly done. He must have had help. We had to dig deep to get the truth.”
A sudden coldness filled her with dread. “So who was he? And why did he have to change his identity?”
“His name was John Creighton. We traced him through Merrick. They both went to Cambridge University—your father studying medicine, Merrick biochemistry—and later they worked together in a research facility.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
Luke nodded. “We have photographs of Creighton and Merrick.”
She picked up her empty cup, got up, and filled it with coffee, more for something to do than because she wanted it. Her whole background was a lie, and suddenly she was s
cared of what she might discover. Then something else occurred to her.
“My mother? Who was she? Was my dad married at the time?” Had he left his wife behind when he took on the new identity? Is that why he would never talk about her mother?
Luke got up and came to stand beside her. “There is no record of John Creighton ever marrying.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“There’s more, Jenna. There’s no record of him ever having a child. There is no record of your existence at all.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jenna stepped backward and sank into the chair behind her. “Are you saying I don’t exist? That he wasn’t my father?” She searched Luke’s face for the truth.
He shook his head. “That’s what we originally thought, but we ran both your photographs through facial recognition software, which can be used to compare features and pick up similarities. There’s no doubt your father is a close relative. In fact, if you study the pictures we have of John Creighton, you can see the resemblance, the bone structure especially. We can maybe try to find a source of DNA for him, but I don’t think the relationship is in question.”
“So where did I come from? Why is there no record of my birth?”
“We don’t know, but we’re researching it. We’re also looking into what your father was working on with Merrick. We’re pretty sure the company was a cover for the Conclave, but we still don’t know what sort of research they were doing.”
The information was going around and around in her head. A sudden jab of pain stabbed at her temple. Jenna pressed a finger against the point, but the pain only intensified. She rose shakily to her feet. “I think I need to lie down. I don’t feel so good.”
Luke reached out a hand, but it dropped back down to his side before he touched her. “Jenna, none of this has any bearing on who you are.”
“Yes, it does. It has every bearing.”
Without waiting for him to say anything further, she turned and left the room.
She made her way back up to the bedroom and lay down on the bed, her eyes screwed up tight. Rolling onto her side, she hugged her knees to her chest.
What was happening to her?
Inside, she was changing. But into what?
Who was she? She flexed her fingers, feeling the strength. What was she?
She burrowed her face into the softness of the pillow.
“Jenna?”
She hadn’t heard the door open.
Luke stood just inside the room, hands shoved in his pockets. “Are you okay?”
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
“You need to forget for a while.”
She gave a small rueful smile. “Forgetting would be good.”
He took a few steps closer so that he was standing beside the bed, looking down at her through half-closed eyes. Something hot awoke deep inside her, uncoiling in her belly and clenching the muscles tight.
He held her gaze as his hands went to the buttons of his shirt. “I can make you forget.”
Jenna sat up, peeled the robe from her body, and dropped it on the floor at his feet. Swinging her legs from the bed, she stood up and took a step toward him.
“Make me forget, Luke.”
Jenna’s face pressed up tight against his chest, and she smiled into his skin.
Her whole body tingled with the aftermath of pleasure, her limbs boneless, her mind at peace. For a little while at least.
Soon she would have to think again, try to unravel the secrets of the past. As Luke had said to her earlier, until she did that, she would never be free.
“You’re thinking again,” he whispered into her hair.
“No, I’m not.” She pushed herself away slightly and came up on one elbow, allowing her gaze to wander over the length of him. Here and there were the scars of a life spent fighting. A raised burn ran down his right side, she guessed from the crash that killed his wife. She stroked her finger along the scar that ran down over his left shoulder.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Machete cut.”
She winced. “Nasty. And this?” She pressed her palm over a small round scar an inch to the right of his navel. “Let me guess—bullet—must have hurt.”
“Didn’t feel a thing.”
“Liar.”
He cupped her face in his hand. “I just want you to know, I’ve been honest with you. From now on, I’ll keep you safe. I won’t put you in harm’s way again.”
She frowned. “Yes, you will, if that’s what it takes to stop this thing.”
“We’ll find another way.”
“No. We have to finish this.”
“I won’t lose someone else I care about to the Conclave.”
At his words, her gaze flew to his face, and she saw the sincerity in his eyes.
“You won’t lose me,” she said, though she suspected the words were a lie. She knew she would do whatever was necessary to find the truth, and there was a good chance one or both of them would not come out of it alive.
Always in the past, she had held herself aloof from any man whom she might come to care for. She’d considered herself a liability, hadn’t wanted to fall in love and have that love tested when she became ill, which had seemed inevitable. How could she have asked any man to put up with that?
But her father had lied about everything else. What if he had also lied about her illness? What if she didn’t have a genetic disorder, but the medicine he gave her was for something else, something he hadn’t wanted to explain? How better to get her obedience than to terrify her with promises of dire consequences should she fail to take it.
The phone beside the bed rang. Luke gave a rueful smile and picked it up. Jenna heard Callum’s voice on the other end of the line.
“There’s a video I think you should see, and we’ve found the security tapes on the hard drive. You need to come and look.”
Luke sighed. “I’ll be there in five minutes.” He put the phone down. “I have to go.”
“I heard, and I’m coming with you.”
He opened his mouth to argue but must have seen the determination in her face, because he shut it again. Standing up, he stretched and held out a hand to her.
“We’ve no clothes for you, but come along to my room. I’ll find you something to put on, and I’ll get someone to pick up some things up for you.” He pulled her in close and breathed in. “Hmm, you smell of sex. We can shower, as well. No reason to give Callum any more cause to piss me off.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Callum glanced up as they entered the room. His eyes narrowed as he saw Jenna, but he didn’t say anything. He was seated at a computer and gestured to the chairs next to him.
Jenna hitched up her black sweatpants. They were rolled over about four times at the waist but the oversized T-shirt hung almost to her knees and covered them.
Sinking into a chair, she waited, anxiety gnawing at her insides. Callum had mentioned the security tapes, and she knew he must mean the ones of her interrogation. Did she want to see them and bring it all back?
Luke sat next to her; Callum pressed a button, and the monitor flickered to life.
“Ivory Coast. Field Test Four. Day One 1000 hours.”
The screen switched to show an African village. The villagers were all huddled in the center, crouching in the dirt. Women, children, men. They didn’t appear alarmed but were chatting and laughing among themselves. The camera panned out. Men in silver Hazmat suits, masks covering their heads and faces, surrounded the village. They all wore what she guessed were breathing apparatuses strapped to their backs.
One of them moved forward into the center of the village, carrying a cylinder. When he set it down inside the circle and flicked open the top, a faint trail of gas spiraled into the air.
Jenna felt a hard ball of fear twist in her guts. She didn’t want to watch but couldn’t make herself look away.
“Ivory Coast. Field Test Four. Day One 1400 hours.”
Most of the villagers were down, lying prostrate in the dirt. One rose unsteadily to his feet and stumbled out of the circle. This time the guards made no pretense, just knocked him with the rifle butt so he collapsed to the ground. The camera closed in on him, showing bloodshot eyes, crimson seeping from open sores on the dull black skin.
“Ivory Coast. Field Test Four. Day One 1800 hours.”
There was virtually no movement now. They lay either dead or too sick to move. Jenna blinked back the tears that stung her eyes. The men in suits walked among them, occasionally removing a body, dragging them away as though they hadn’t been living, healthy human beings only hours earlier. She watched blankly until the final moments when the bodies were all cleared and the village was set alight.
Doctor Smith’s face appeared. “Field test four was a complete success, one hundred percent mortality rate. Within twelve hours, all participants were dead. We tested the area at hourly intervals; all traces of the chemical were gone within a further six hours. It is my recommendation that the product is ready for active use.”
The screen went blank. This time it stayed blank.
Jenna leaned back against her seat. Who were the people who had done this? What did they want so badly that life became meaningless?
She turned to Luke. “He said field test four. Does that mean they did this before? Why?”
“We think they plan a major attack on one or more of the big cities—London, probably, and maybe New York. As a statement. ‘Show the world what we can do’ sort of thing, but there has to be a bigger plan behind it. We just can’t see it yet.” He swiveled his chair to face Callum. “What else have you got?”